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According to Xconomy, one major issue constantly plaguing startups is finding willing beta testers that can help get a service or site in shape before a public launch. BetaBait, which launched publicly today, wants to help solve this problem by better connecting startups and eager testers.

One of the company’s co-founders is long-time VentureBeat contributor Cody Barbierri. He said he started the company because he saw a clear opening in the market, with so many start ups in Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley, but not enough tools to help get testers lined up. BetaBait members receive a single email every day that lists several beta web, mobile and social applications.

Membership is free for start ups and potential beta users. The company plans to make money from advertisers that “sponsor” a daily e-mail. “At the top of the email, there will be a place for a company to spotlight their product or service,” Barbierri said. “We only allow one ad per day per email.”

Barbierri said there are several companies already out there that help startups launch and manage their beta tests, such as LaunchRock or BetaEasy. But BetaBait isn’t competing with them; instead it’s focused on actually bringing users into a beta test. ”If anything, a start up would want to use us all at the same time,” Barbierri said. “We aren’t providing a tool to connect, we are connecting [testers] to the tools.”

The Bridgeport, Conn.-based company is self-funded at present. Barbierri said the company is working on a small scale presently, but it hopes to attract outside funding in the “near future

According to Xconomy, just a decade ago, if you wanted to invest in a start up you had to know someone. A lawyer, an accountant or a friend of friend would give you a referral to a company looking to raise money, or they’d invite you to invest with them. That’s how you got in the door. You had to have a lot of money to play – often $50,000 or more. And the startups you’d see were from your geographical region. That traditional scenario left a lot of interested angel investors sitting on the sidelines.

Today, it’s a lot easier to become an angel investor, due to crowd funding, micro lending and investment sites like Microventures Marketplace Inc., which is opening doors to those looking to invest $1,000 to $20,000 or more. The way to win at angel investing, of course, is to invest in the right start ups. To get there, you need: 1) Good deal flow from which to spot potential winners. 2) The ability to invest in multiple deals so you gain experience. 3) A knack for spotting companies, and more importantly people, who will succeed. Getting good deal flow is often the stumbling block for the average person looking to get started in angel investing.

And it’s one of the reasons Bill Clark founded MicroVentures. He wanted to begin investing, but didn’t have access to good deals. Like many others thinking about making angel investments, Clark wanted to invest smaller sums in more companies, allowing him to spread out his risk and also increase his changes of picking a winner. And he wanted access to great companies outside of the Austin area, which is his hometown. More than a thousand investors have joined MicroVentures since Clark launched the investment service a year ago. The service matches companies seeking money with investors looking to invest anywhere from $1,000 to $20,000 or more. MicroVenture helps investors learn about companies they may never have heard of, and to invest smaller sums, which is virtually unheard of with traditional investing. MicroVentures also helps with the initial due diligence process by filtering start-ups and then providing documents to help investors conduct their own due diligence to help them make a final decision.

When Malcolm McLean, trucking executive guru and the "godfather" of the ubiquitous global shipping container needed to solve the problem of how to stack the containers, he turned to Keith Tantlinger, an engineer at a truck trailer manufacturer in Washington to design a way to solve the problem. Keith developed a lock that connected the containers at the corners and allowed the crane operators to release or close the lock without leaving their cabs.

The lock, patented and introduced in the mid 1950's, presaged the birth of the container revolution over the next two decades. Instead of manually unloading pallets or boxes of cargo from ships and reloading them into rail cars or trucks, a container could be easily lifted off the vessel and placed on a truck chassis for transport to the final destination. Not only were cost efficiencies realized with the new technology, but security was enhanced and valuable cargo could now be sealed incognito inside look-alike containers.

We all know the rest of the story--global trade exploded as did the standard of living in many third world countries where goods were made to satisfy developed nations demands. One could say that a simple lock, hardly hi-tech or attractive, is partly responsible for the comfortable lifestyles we now enjoy.

Rest in Peace, Keith Tantlinger (1919-2011), and thank you for being in the right place at the right time with the right idea.

Curt Woodward on Xconomy reports that EquaShip, the Seattle startup that’s aiming to wrangle dramatically cheaper shipping costs for small and medium-sized businesses, has added another $600,000 in financing from undisclosed investors. That pushes the startup’s total funding to $1.5 million, following the announcement of a $900,000 investment in June.

EquaShip rolled out its service in October, targeting the small sellers—many of them doing business on eBay and Amazon—who don’t get big-account treatment fro FedEx and UPS. Founder and CEO Ron Wiener says there are millions of those businesses around the country, and EquaShip says it can offer them rates that are “typically 28 percent to 79 percent below UPS and FedEx residential ground rates.”

EquaShip does that by partnering with smaller carriers, who funnel packages through the U.S. Postal Service for final delivery—what’s known as a consolidator service. EquaShip also offers package tracking and insurance. The company plans to use the new investment to add software features and drop-off locations.

As fascinating as the idea continues to sound, please remember that shipping is a scale economics business and that UPS and FedEx are the winners on cost. Unless EquaShip can somehow amass the scale to go after them, it will remain a niche business that serves a niche clientele.